Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Last week was a bad week. Work was no good. Not because of my actual work that I do, just... never mind, whatever, bleh. Brady would come home and ask how my day was and I would just cry a little. My solace was the couch. Mon-Thurs night was spent in front of the TV, but not happily. Friday morning, I asked Brady to think of something, anything, fun for us to do that night. He emailed me in the afternoon with the idea to leave town. HECK YES! He reserved a hotel in Prescott and we were on our way out of town by 4:30pm.

This was the perfect idea. Brady would say that I was "hyper" on the way up there. I probably was. I was ridiculously excited to go to Prescott. I've never actually vacationed there and have no recollection of even driving through, and had no idea what we were going to do all weekend. But cooler weather and just getting away was so perfect.

We played a game called "Rubberneckers" on the way up. Brady had borrowed it from his parents house the week before. You basically draw cards and you have to find what it says on the card, like a weather vane, a car with 3 or more bumper stickers, or a pay phone, and you get points for finding the stuff. We had a fun time just talking and playing on the way up.

We roll into town around 7 and checked into the hotel and we were starving and wanted to find some food. We discovered that we were walking distance from center of town and walked to "El Charro", because Mexican food always sounds good. And it was.

Before going into the restaurant, we saw a concert going on at the courthouse grounds. It looked like the whole town was there. But by the time we got out, it was over and the stage was being packed up. We walked around the courthouse, which would end up being the center of the happenings for the our weekend.

Brady reading the history of Prescott.

The weather was awesome!

On Saturday morning after breakfast at the hotel (which was surprisingly super crowded), we walked back out to the courthouse.

A cool church that was converted to a theatre in the 60's.

Blue flowers! Just like the ones in my wedding bouquet.Only real.

We had seen online that there was a bluegrass music festival going on, and boy, was there. We get to the grounds and although it didn't start for another hour, people were already sitting in their camping chairs waiting for it to start. Lets just say now that the crowd was 90% old people. I mean above the age of 70. It was funny. We sit on the grass and just relax and take pictures.

We are obviously not used to this relaxing lifestyle. After what we thought was 3o+ minutes of chilling, Brady looked at the time and saw that barely 15 minuted had gone by. Whoa. This was going to be a long day. We walked around some more checking out the many sculpture statues. Prescott has them everywhere.

Cool statue that was unveiled in 1907! It's in honor of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and was sculpted by the same guy who did Mount Rushmore.

We ended up on the other side of the courthouse where some bluegrass groups were practicing. We settled on a bench and listened to them and talked, it was fun.

About 15 minutes before the festival started, we walked back to see that that crowd had tripled in size. It was now about 78% old people.

This crowd will end up filling all the grassy area,including the other side of the stage.

We found a little shady spot, but by the time that real show started, we wanted to go check out the shops that were now opening. Prescott has some cool little places to shop, and it's not all western themed and antiques.

We did pass by about million antique stores, though we only went into one, yay us.

After a lot of walking around. We headed back to hotel to rest and so we can plan on a lunch and afternoon activities.

We ate some Subway and drove around Prescott. We went walking around the mall and I even bought a shirt.

Brady would start driving down a road until we were up in the mountains and then turn around and do it again on another road. We ended up trying to turn around only to be wedged between two cars and not finding a good spot to pull over for about 5 minutes, which felt like 20 minutes. It made for a good laugh.Wedged!That night we went to dinner specifically to eat "cowboy food". We ate ribs at this famous saloon & restaurant called "The Palace".

And after dinner, Brady had a big craving for pie. We looked up some good pie shops in Prescott but the good ones were closed already, so we walked next door to Albertson's and bought a coconut pie. We ate it in the hotel room and watched a movie until we fell asleep.

Sunday we left at 9:30am to be home in time for church. It was a fantastic weekend. It was great to be able to leave my worries behind (honestly, I don't really have that many). I loved being able to talk to Brady with no distractions and laugh and relax.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

It's true! It was a while ago. On Mother's Day, actually. I turned 27. I'm officially in my late-twenties. I had a good time sharing the day with my mom. Since we were in Safford, Grandma and Grandpa Bingham made me breakfast. I choose french toast, and it was yummy. Brady gave me a card telling me that he was going to get me a spa day. I was excited, but weekend after weekend was busy. So at the beginning of June, I asked Brady if he could buy me a new purse instead. Although I loved my old purse so much, the shoulder strap was getting a little frayed, and I needed a change.

Old purse: OGIO

New purse: Giani Bernini

So there you have it. A post about purses. I never thought I'd do that.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

In February or March, Brady and I were enjoying the last season of LOST, but feeling pangs of sadness knowing that in May, it will all end. What were we going to do after it's over? We enjoy having a show to follow that has amazing characters and amazing moments that keep us coming back for more. We do watch other shows, but only comedies, really. 30 Rock is our absolute favorite. We catch The Office if we're home. And I started watching Parenthood, and I'm enjoying it, and Brady will even watch it with me most of the time. I also watch Modern Family, but not with Brady, we never think about watching it when it's actually on TV. But it seemed that, for us, great TV is coming to an end.

Then! Brady did a brilliant thing and Netflixed Season 1, Disc 1 of Mad Men.

I've heard from multiple sources that this show was great. It's only been on for 3 seasons and it's already won 2 Emmy's for Beast Drama Series, so I think that's saying something. We watched that first disc in one night and we were quite intrigued. We got disc 2 and flew through that one. This show was already blowing us away! We borrowed seasons 1 and 2 from Paula and Evan, since we couldn't wait 2 days between getting each disc in the mail, and we were officially hooked. We netflixed season 3, and that season ended so good! Now we're waiting for season 4 to start in July.

It feels good to have something to look forward to. I don't watch as much TV as I used to. I don't even watch as many movies as I used to. But deep down, I love movies and television. I love a compelling story, with awesome characters and great writing to go with it.

I do have my guilty pleasures too. I really like Glee. Brady is very vocal about his hate for Glee, (he doesn't know whether it's a comedy or a drama), so I watch it at work in the corner of my computer screen every Wednesday. I also have an on again, off again, relationship with The Hills. So bad, I know. But watching stupid people makes me feel better about my life sometimes.

Back to Mad Men. IMDb describes the show like this:

A drama about one of New York's most prestigious ad agencies at the beginning of the1960s, focusing on one of the firm's most mysterious but extremely talented ad executives,Donald Draper.

Jon Hamm's Don Draper is definitely one of the best character created. Such an intriguing guy. I watch this show and think, "I should hate this guy. But I don't!" Just so cool. He can sell anything: